Let me just say I’m not as advanced in the red pill life as a lot of you guys and I’m a 40-year-old married dude who has been blue pill most of my life. Many of you guys really get it and are naturals, and don’t want to hear excuses as to why some guys aren’t getting it. This post isn’t geared towards everyone, just guys that struggle with aspects of the red pill (especially those with anxiety) and who may benefit from hearing my opinion on inherited personality traits and more importantly, dealing with the obstacles of some of those genetic traits in order to learn how to achieve their highest potential as men. I think its helpful to know the reasoning as to why some guys are naturally higher in Neuroticism than others, and I’ve found that ‘the big five personality traits’ (explained here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits) can provide a really helpful guide for understanding what I believe are genetically heritable personality traits. Briefly these are Openness to Experience (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious), Conscientiousness (efficient/organized vs. easy-going/careless), Extraversion (outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved), Agreeableness (friendly/compassionate vs. challenging/detached), and Neuroticism (sensitive/nervous vs. secure/confident).

My understanding is that genetics lays about 50% of the foundation of your personality, or where you naturally lie within the individual spectrum's of these 5 traits (based on studies of identical twins raised apart). I’m assuming environment influences how these genes express themselves for the other 50% of your personality. Which is important because I’m of the opinion that all the traits expect for Neuroticism can be improved upon through consistent red pill practices. Neuroticism, however, is fundamentally biological in my view, and I’ve found that you can’t just wish it away, or practice it away through any type of conditioning, but rather you can only ameliorate it by consciously doings things that increase your testosterone.

Nature created a chip in the female brains of our hunter gather ancestors, that defined the highest value male that they could mate with (based on how they expressed a certain mixture of these 5 traits), and they had to make this decision as quickly as possible. That same chip lies in the brains of the modern female. A high value male/mate would exhibit the same traits that the red pill philosophy is trying to inculcate today, high Openness to Experience, lower Conscientiousness, higher Extraversion, higher Disagreeability, and lower Neuroticism. This is the modern day socially dominant alpha type man, he’s down for anything, he’s care-free, he’s the life of the party, he’s not a pushover, and he’s confident as fuck. This was the high value mate that was too good to pass up, and that a woman could not resist.

Unfortunately for those of us not naturally leaning that way within the Big 5 traits, we have to learn as much as we can to exhibit these same qualities if we want to succeed in the dating world, or if we want to see what it’s like maximizing our potential in the world as men. Even if you aren’t actively looking for mere dating success, exhibiting these leanings of the Big 5 traits does transfer to a lot of success in your everyday life because everyone responds positively and rewards this type of personality in men. There must be a chip in everyone’s brain that quickly determines “this guy has got it figured out, he should lead, and we’ll follow him,” and usually it responds to the same expression of these alpha traits.

I’m going to ignore Openness to Experience and Conscientiousness for the rest of this post and focus on a combination of traits that I see a lot that creates an unusual obstacle to overcome for men trying to actualize the red pill philosophy. I think if you are naturally higher in Neuroticism, lower in Extraversion, and too Agreeable, it makes it fundamentally more challenging for you, because you are not someone that is great at connecting socially with others, you probably are too considerate to impose yourself on anyone, and you overthink everything you say and it shows. You are hard wired with an unusual genetic personality disadvantage for getting what you want from other people, although it’s not an insurmountable one, it is exactly what would result in being disparagingly referred to as a ‘nice guy’ that doesn’t get the girls/things he’s secretly vying/transacting for. There’s a reason for the nice guys finish last aphorism.

A guy who is clearly genetically an Extrovert (wants to approach), is slightly Disagreeable (no fear of rejection), and low in Neuroticism (outcome independent, gives less fucks, won’t overthink), will have the most success in getting what he wants in spite of competition. I think it’s possible to emulate extroversion or condition yourself to like acting like an extrovert occasionally, even if you always default back to being more of an introvert. I also think you can learn how to be more disagreeable especially if you have seen that it takes a certain level of disagreeability in order to get things that you want.

The benefit of knowing what your inherent genetic personality is, is that you can clearly identify any and all obstacles to your desired outcome. Don’t use this shit as an excuse, use it as the epiphany that gives you the clarity to tackle exactly what you need to do in order to overcome this with real action. If you are not naturally an Extrovert, find some Extravert bros to hang out with and learn from them like as if you were an intern that is learning extroversion, only with practice can you get comfortable talking a lot. If you are too Agreeable, and naturally default to some nice guy, please everyone else first-frame, practice being selfish and putting what you want above other’s needs without being creepy (learn the art of making physical contact that is welcomed without fear of rejection).

I wanted to emphasize the Neuroticism hurdle more than anything. This is the most challenging of them if you happen to lean higher in emotional instability. Some of us just have this ever-present monkey on our back (in our genes). You care too much, your frame gets unwound too easily, you are too reactive, anxious, and overthink things, it’s just the way you are wired. Humans are so advanced in detecting this and see it as a weakness in you, guys in competitive situations will detect this in you with mere trash talk and gauging your reaction, and women are the most advanced of all in seeing if you are an emotional liability. Nature designed the shit test for this very reason, if you didn’t pass it, you were considered a lower value mating option for her that had to be passed up because mating with you could cost her or her offspring their lives. For example, if your Neuroticism was the factor that made you susceptible to being defeated in a fight protecting her. It all makes evolutionary sense, but I say so what if you aren’t born with a natural alpha personality? Don’t let that be an excuse that you use for self-pity. The unusual opportunity we have as humans, is to be able to recognize our nature, and yet still be able to make attempts to override it if we see a benefit that we want to achieve, and it is possible.

You must find the things that lower your Neuroticism as much as you can, and the main way you can do this is by increasing your testosterone as much as possible (naturally). This will give you frequent moments in which you are in a state of being lower in emotional instability, moments of actually not pretending, but riding the high of a dude that doesn’t give a fuck because he’s actually confident. There is no permanent fix, you will always have to fight the onset of cortisol lowering your testosterone, and you might always default back to being too anxious. I say fuck it man, don’t hate your genetic personality leanings. Yeah it sucks that everyone isn’t born being a natural alpha, but it’s your choice whether you let it remain a scapegoat for why you don’t get your shit together or whether you man up and take the challenge that the genetic lottery has given you so that can become the hero of your own personal narrative, the dude that fights for something greater to be gained and actually achieves it. Everyone should have healthy self- esteem for what they actually are and the majority of us are average dudes born of average pair bonding’s.

At some point in history your Neurotic, Introvert, Agreeable genes were a successful or crucial strategy that worked really well in some time perhaps where there may have not been a lot of people/competition and being nice, reserved, and sensitive made your tribe/genes survive. Have some pride in the mess that you are, but also realize that exhibiting and choosing to indulge in those traits in the modern world doesn’t work anymore because there are far too many people on this planet today and the things that are desirable are under an immense competitive pressure. Everyone wants those same limited and highly valued mates, those limited resources. So learn to exhibit the Big 5 traits in a way that ensures that you get your share, that you get what you want, the girl that you want, the job that you want, and that you become the best version of yourself.
As long as you keep doing things to increase your testosterone you will get consistent moments of being confident and secure.

You already know the words and dogma that you should embrace to fight Neuroticism, don’t overthink, be outcome independent, don’t loose your frame, don’t demonstrate that you’re an emotional liability. But words will fail us when you approach a 10 at a nightclub and you haven’t taken any action to increase your testosterone and her advanced brain sees right through you because you can’t fake lower Neuroticism. If I’m right and it’s inherently tied to testosterone, woman must be able to detect it in some subconscious biological way.

Take some actions that ameliorate this, make increasing testosterone your new practiced goal to combat it. That’s why dudes always say lifting here on this forum, it is fundamental to increasing T. Anything that increases your testosterone should lower your Neuroticism, things that I’ve found that have helped me include: any type of fasting, eating zinc rich foods (pumpkin seeds/red meat/oysters) or making sure you get @ 15-30mg of zinc in your diet daily, staying away from products that mess with your hormones and lower your T, getting enough vitamin D3, taking a magnesium supplement, eating salmon more, sleeping 8 hours, reducing alcohol, meditating, doing sprints, these are all concrete things in my tool bag that I can do in order to fight my natural Neuroticism leaning. I would also highly suggest experimenting with Ashwagandha KSM-66 (has helped me a lot). Take actions to overcome the genetic leaning of your Neuroticism if you see it in you as a primary weakness to obtaining your red pill goals, and perhaps after a few months or years of concerted effort, you may find yourself maintaining frame more easily, more naturally. Best of luck.

Interesting article, but I think you can make the Red Pill work for you with any underlying personality type, it's just going to be more effort. All of the various personality traits got passed down through the generations because they are useful. The paranoid personality guy does really well in a war situation where there are booby traps everywhere. The shy cautious guy avoids walking into the enemy ambush and ends up mating with the girl over the next mountain range instead of getting stabbed with a spear. The shy reserved guy can appear cool and aloof and let the girls walk over to him to strike up a conversation if he plays it right. There's plenty of alpha chads getting laid with the cool artist or musician thing that are totally at odds with the Frat Bro extrovert personality. Gotta make the tool-kit work for you, instead of trying to change your personality to fit the tool-kit.

Put two spaces between each paragraph my man. Also it's interesting to read the critique of the big 5. There are claims that it's incomplete and missing religiosity, manipulativeness/machiavellianism, honesty, sexiness/seductiveness, thriftiness, conservativeness, masculinity/femininity, snobbishness/egotism, sense of humour, and risk-taking/thrill-seeking.

Yeah, it's probably not complete, but I have found it very useful the past couple of years to gauge people and myself. When you are looking for it, it's very noticeable how people advertise the big 5, the are almost shouting where they lie within the bell curves of each trait.

Took me a couple of years in my 40’s to kill my anxiety using diet/exercise/meditation.
It’s a fuckibg slog and haters will still hate but you will come to welcoming their irritation as an opportunity to transcend it.
Good luck! It’s well worth making the effort.

Just to add to that. I used meditation to learn to accept and live with my constant anxiety. That was good enough for me but it meant getting up early and putting the time in.
Then, after a year or so, the tightness just began to melt away, by the summer it had gone.

I still get anxious and worried but it never lasts and I know how to accept it and live with it so it really has no hold over me anymore.

You must understand your personality can change. I've been tracking myself using myghs-whatever personality test for 5+ years already and I went from intj to entj to entp just because I switched off programming work and went into impulse sales kind of work. (And yes, these tests do have some merit because they provide the reflection of a personality.) TRP avareness and knowledge obviously made a difference. All I want to add in here is don't be too fatalistic about your CURRENT personality.

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Your personality is defined by the environment you're in and what has been uploaded into your brain. Your behavior is going to change under certain circumstanced and it's even been proven people: stanford prison experiment. And countless other examples of people acting weird and not being "themselves": riots for another instance, football fan madness, drunk people, sluts hamstering out because feels etc. There is very little "you".

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It's a sad thought because you realise how much control over yourself you have over your decisions but merely recognising this and accepting this as a matter of fact makes you more in control of yourself, more in-tune with the world and more aware of the environment and what exactly do you feel in a given moment. That's the exact point I personally believe where you start to think objectively about yourself - (recognising yourself as a fat useless purposeless slave i.e.) and start to move along these personality slidebars towards the TRP mindset and lifestyle which is going to be reflected on these personality tests.

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It's not "I've got some bad cards to play life with". It's not "cards" - it's a reflection of your current mindset and decision making that has been compiled over your entire life up until this point. As your life experiences change your personality is to follow.

I like what you've said a lot, and I'm not a scientist or anything, so my opinion could be off. But I'd like you to consider what if the cards are more clear than you might suspect. Check out this movie about 3 identical twins raised apart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7py4M_xFILk
My basic understanding is that research about identicals raised apart shows a strong foundation of genetics in personality, but it's not everything-you are right.

Be careful with "general trends". Twins raised apart may grow up with the same personality, but there are exceptions to the rule. Those exceptions get lost when we "average out the results" so we're stuck with unhelpful data.

You can change your personality, it happens all the time. As you grow older you naturally grow less neurotic and more conscientious. Meditation changes personality, so does various combinations of supplements including hormones (higher testosterone equals more assertiveness).

The point is the degree to which you change depends entirely on how far you are from your target. If you want to change neuroticism 2 standard deviations, you're going to have work significantly hard at it for 5-10 years. (I'm taking this guesstimate from watching Jordan Peterson's opinion on it).

Trp used to be post like this by real man. FR used to be man whom just got out of their mess and showing life/trending upwards. Now FR is all about I’m 17, alpha wants to fuck my 15 yo sister, how do I get in my varsity team, please help, help me become more alpha, going to college next month. Fuck this shit. Keep posting man! Keep it up!

Just a friendly reminder that as TRP has been quarantined, we have developed backup sites: https://www.trp.red and our full post archive (and future forums) https://www.forums.red/i/TheRedPill. Don't forget to register on TRP.RED and reserve your reddit name today. Forums.Red is currently locked but will be opened soon.

Thanks. Just my opinion on the typical big 5 traits in the alphas I personally know. Or the alpha traits that work in a pick up scenario best, like in a club or bar. You are right, there are variations of it that are still alpha in other situations. I believe alpha can be situational state, and sometimes the introvert, high Conscientiousness, low openness, guy might be be recognized as the alpha (like in a religious club for example).